Five questions from Todd Hefferman

South Dakota quarterback Chris Streveler (15) gets a block from teammate Mason Scheidegger while running out of the pocket during the Coyotes' 37-21 loss to Illinois State on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2017 at Hancock Stadium in Normal, Ill.(Photo: Lewis Marien / For the Argus Leader)

Southern Illinois beat writer Todd Hefferman sent me a few questions to answer about the 2017 Coyotes this week. These were the answers.

1. Even when you have good returning personnel, things don’t always go as well as people sometimes expect. Did you foresee South Dakota making such a big splash this season?

Mick: I expected the team would be better than last year but I didn’t think they’d be this much better. Before the season I went through the schedule and guessed game-by-game whether they’d be favored or not – my way of copping out on actually picking outcomes – and to me it looked like they were headed for 5-6 or possibly 6-5.

The Coyotes’ history against a lot of the teams on the schedule is dramatically one-sided. This includes both their longtime Division II rivals and the teams where the history is much shorter.

They’d lost 20 of their last 23 to North Dakota, for instance. They’d never beaten Western Illinois during the Division I era and they’d never beaten Youngstown State. When you throw in a BCS game, albeit against a mediocre program, that’s a lot of games that USD has usually lost. And it’s no different the rest of the way with SDSU and NDSU. Historically the Coyotes lose to those two teams.

I did think the offense was going to be significantly better, though. In talking to the coaches – most of whom are pretty well-schooled in not getting too giddy about anything – you could tell they thought Streveler’s second season with the no-huddle had the potential to be much better than it had been last year.

2. More than a dozen players have contributed to South Dakota’s 25 sacks. What’s the best thing they do on defense?

Mick: It’s an aggressive defense and, up until last Saturday, an excellent tackling defense. In an attempt to shore up defense against the run this year, they’ve not hesitated to send a few more guys into the box. This has meant leaving the cornerbacks off on their own occasionally, but they’ve held up pretty well so far.

The number of people who have recorded sacks would in part be explained by throwing a lot of different looks out there but also the substitution policies. Wholesale changes along the defensive line are pretty commonplace during the course of a game. I think Darin Greenfield at defensive end is looking like a real tough all-conference level talent but otherwise there’s not one player among the front seven who has really emerged as a star this season. In a way, that could be viewed as a strength. Again, discounting last week’s effort, the team is much better against the run than a year ago and has also been very good at getting to the quarterback. I think they’ve been caught in some situations on gambles that didn’t work out, but more often than not they’re outperforming what they did last year by quite a margin and they’re doing it with a lot of the same personnel.

3. How much of Chris Streveler’s success has been the system, and how much has been his pure ability?

I would hook up the two and say it’s Streveler’s comfort level with the system more than the system itself. That’s been the biggest factor in the revved-up offense – really the biggest factor in the entire season. He’s got a ton of natural ability but he’d really not done much quarterbacking since he was a senior in high school. He had a redshirt season at Minnesota, then a year as a backup, then they started moving him around here and there to other positions. He’s definitely improved his ability to throw a football accurately and – if there’s such a thing – more thoughtfully. He’s a very smart guy and I think at some point between last year and this year he really figured out how to take full advantage of the things a no-huddle spread attack has to offer someone with his set of skills. I think last year people figured out that if they kept him from running they could take their chances with the rest of the things the Coyotes were trying to do. This year that’s a riskier proposition. I think in several of the early games opponents were trying to stop the 2016 Streveler and finding out there’s more to it in 2017.

4. Do you think we see a blowout, one way or the other, or a very close game Saturday?

Mick: I think the Coyotes have enjoyed their last blow out. I don’t know how you could conclude it’s going to be anything other than a close game. USD just lost to a team that Southern Illinois beat by 35 points. Within the context of this league, those kinds of momentum shifts game-by-game are probably more common than in a lot of other leagues, but still, it’s pretty obvious Southern Illinois is starting to tune things up quite a bit. Being at home for USD is usually a big advantage, but more of the stumbling and bumbling the Coyotes did last Saturday would result in another loss.

5. Including Saturday, all four of South Dakota’s last regular-season games are in domes. When you spend so much time at the DakotaDome, do you get a little bit anxious for the elements toward the end of the year?

It’s an interesting question, especially after the Coyotes looked out of sorts last week outside a dome. They gained a ton of yards, however, so I don’t know that being outside really had much to do with losing to Illinois State.

But let’s say they make the playoffs. In late November in Vermillion, S.D., they’re going to go outside and practice for the first time in more than a month. I could see that hampering preparation initially. And if they’d be dealing with any kind of unusual conditions on game day somewhere in the Midwest, it would be for the first time in a long time they might have to alter how they go about things to accommodate bad weather.

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